


perhaps today you'll make the right choice

by CrayolaRainbow



Category: Red White & Royal Blue - Casey McQuiston
Genre: Emotional, Emotional Hurt, First Steps, Gen, Introspection, Redemption, The Emails, philip redemption, philp realizes he's fucked up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-16
Updated: 2020-05-16
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:02:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24211795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrayolaRainbow/pseuds/CrayolaRainbow
Summary: Philip reads the emails, does some thinking, sends an angry text to his friends from uni, and shuts down the queen.
Relationships: Alex Claremont-Diaz/Henry Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor, Martha Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor/Philip Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 13
Kudos: 258





	perhaps today you'll make the right choice

**Author's Note:**

> This is my 20th fic!
> 
> It also has a Very Specific word count
> 
> I now have exactly 69,696 words posted on ao3
> 
> I'm very proud of myself
> 
> That being said, this _is_ a serious fic, not crack.

Philip is already awake and dressed when the news breaks. He’s sitting in the breakfast nook, reading the paper when his phone starts buzzing.

On the front page of his news app are the headlines from his nightmares.

BREAKING: Photos Reveal Romantic Relationship Between Prince Henry and Alex Claremont-Diaz

THE ORAL OFFICE: READ FSOTUS’S STEAMY EMAILS TO PRINCE HENRY

The headlines are all accompanied by a photo of his brother in a car somewhere kissing the son of the goddamn president of the _USA_.

“Edward!” he shouts. His chair screeches as he stands up. “I need to go to Kensington immediately.”

His esquire comes in moments later. “I’ll go grab your coat and prepare the car.”

“Darling, what’s wrong?” Martha walks in, wearing his silk robe over her pajamas.

Philip hands her his phone and puts on the coat Edward has returned with.

“My brother has been consorting with another man and has gotten it plastered all over the news,” he spits. “And to make matters worse, it’s the son of the leader of a foreign country! Could he have picked a more disastrous person to fraternize with?”

“Bloody hell.” Martha hands back the phone. “Do you need me to come with?”

“No, I can manage this alone. There’s no need for you to ruin your morning too.”

Martha kisses him. “Well, let me know if you want me to come down later.”

Philip squeezes her hand “Love you.”

“Love you too dear.”

And with that, Philip is off to Kensington to set his brother straight.

~~~

It does not go as well as Philip had hoped. He breaks a vase that once belonged to Anne Boleyn, for starters. Bea turns him away whenever he tries to have a stern discussion with Henry about the consequences of his actions in between the countless meetings with advisors where he has to read snippets of his brother talking about private matters with some _fling_ , that are now online for anyone to read. It’s a nightmare.

He stays at Buckingham instead of dealing with the 6 hour round trip to Anmer Hall. He’s back at Kensington first thing the next morning after Bea mentions that Henry had brought his side piece to London. He barely has time to get dressed, let alone comb his hair. He can’t risk the chance Henry might make this international incident even worse.

“I cannot believe you, Henry.” Philip says as he enters the kitchen. “How dare you break the communications embargo. How dare you bring your boy toy here while the palace is being watched,” he spits. “How dare you continue to embarrass the family with your antics. It’s foolishness, Henry. You’re too young to understand.” 

“I’m twenty-three, Philip. Mum was barely more than that when she met Dad.”

“Yes, and you think that was a wise decision?” Philip says nastily. “Marrying a man who spent half our childhoods making films, who never served his country, who got sick and left us and Mum—”

“Don’t, Philip. I swear to God. Just because your obsession with family legacy didn’t impress him—”

“You clearly don’t know the first fucking thing about what a legacy means if you can let something like this happen,” Philip snaps. “The only thing to do now is bury it and hope that somehow people will believe that none of it was real. That’s your duty, Henry. It’s the least you can do.”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I’m such a disgrace for being the way I am,” Henry says, defiant.

“I don’t care if you’re gay. I care that you’ve made this choice, with him”—he spares a glance at Alex—“someone with a fucking target on his back, to be so stupid and naive and selfish as to think it wouldn’t completely fuck us all.”

“I knew, Philip. Christ,” Henry says. “I knew it could ruin everything. I was terrified of exactly this. But how could I have predicted? How?”

“As I said, naive. This is the life we live, Henry. You’ve always known it. I’ve tried to tell you. I wanted to be a good brother to you, but you don’t bloody listen. It’s time to remember your place in this family. Be a man. Stand up and take responsibility. Fix this. For once in your life, don’t be a coward.”

Henry flinches like he’s been slapped. _Good._ Maybe he’ll finally listen.

But then, the idiot sticks his chin out. “I’m not a coward,” he says. “And I don’t want to fix it.”

Philip laughs humorlessly. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You can’t possibly know.”

“Fuck off, Philip, I love him.”

“Oh, you love him, do you? What exactly do you intend to do, then, Henry? Hmm? Marry him? Make him the Duchess of Cambridge? The First Son of the United bloody States, fourth in line to be Queen of England?”

“I’ll fucking abdicate!” Henry practically shouts. “I don’t care!”

“You wouldn’t dare,” Philip spits.

“We have a great uncle who abdicated because he was a fucking Nazi, so it’d hardly be the worst reason anyone’s done it, would it?” Henry yells. He stands, towering over Philip. He resists the urge to take a step back.

“What are we even defending here, Philip? What kind of legacy? What kind of family, that says, we’ll take the murder, we’ll take the raping and pillaging and the colonizing, we’ll scrub it up nice and neat in a museum, but oh no, you’re a bloody poof? That’s beyond our sense of decorum! I’ve bloody well had it. I’ve sat about long enough letting you and Gran and the weight of the damned world keep me pinned, and I’m finished. I don’t care. You can take your legacy and your decorum and you can shove it up your fucking arse, Philip. I’m done.” He huffs, turns, and walks out.

Philip’s face burns in anger and embarrassment. He feels sick to his stomach. How dare Henry. How _dare he_. Doesn’t he understand that Philip isn't happy either. How dare he throw it in Philip’s face.

“For what it’s worth, that is the bravest son of a bitch I’ve ever met.” Alex says and follows Henry, leaving Philip in the kitchen to steam.

~~~

The meeting with the queen goes just as poorly. It ends with Bea upending a pot of tea into his lap and frog marching him out to “help” him clean himself.

“I’m sorry you don’t understand them,” Bea says as she hands Philip a towel. “But you should maybe think about why that is. Because if it’s just your damn protocol, times are changing, Pip. Don’t be left behind.”

And with that, she leaves Philip alone with his thoughts and a fistful of damp towel.

~~~

“I think you should read them,” Martha says, late Monday night. They’re in the living room, feet propped up near the fire.

“Read what?” Philip looks up from his book. Martha’s closed the thick file folder she’s been reading.

“The emails, Pip.”

Philip scoffs. “I’ve already read them.”

“No you haven’t. Not _really_. Not all of them.”

“Did _you_ read them?” Philip asks, shocked.

Martha wiggles the folder slightly. “Call it morbid curiosity. I wanted to know if they said anything about me.”

“Did they?” If they slandered his wife….

“I suppose you’ll have to read and find out,” she says.

“ _Mazzy._ ”

Her face turns serious. “I think you’ll learn a lot about your brother and what he thinks.”

“I _know_ what he thinks. He made that abundantly clear as he shouted at me last week.”

“Philip, that’s different. A spat in the kitchen won’t show you how deeply he loves Alex or where his priorities are.”

Philip frowns. “I’ll think about it.”

Mazzy smiles and hands him the folder. “Whenever you’re ready.”

~~~

The rest of the week passes in a haze. Henry, Bea, and their mother get to walk out of the negotiations with their heads high, having got exactly what they wanted. The whole time the emails hang over Philip’s head.

Sunday evening, he locks himself in the library and pours over the emails.

He's got this rolling distaste in the pit of his stomach through the whole thing. Part of him is disgusted, not by the gay thing, but because it’s so damn intimate. He feels like he’s watching his brother’s sex tape. This was stolen from his brother, aired out to the world for all to see, and he’s horrified for him.

Some parts he recognizes. Snippets passed around meetings, phrases that made it into unavoidable headlines.

Most of it is absolutely foreign to him.

He knows that Henry hasn’t been happy these past few years. None of them have been, not since their dad died. But to see it written out like this, heart bared…

It makes him rethink his part in all this, all the ways he’s hurt his brother.

He reads on and only gets angrier. At who, he’s not sure.

_“I took my first time, with one of my brother’s mates from uni when I was seventeen, and I found the smallest, most cramped little broom cupboard I could muster, and I shoved it in.”_ Henry writes, and Philip’ heart wrenches. He does the math. When Henry was 17, Philip was 23.

“Fucking hell,” Philip says outloud. He sends a text to his uni friend group chat.

Philip: Which one of you fucked my brother

Nothing. The minutes drag on.

Philip: I will call you all to the palace if I have to.

Little grey dots pop up at the bottom of the screen, and the messages flood in.

Gavin: Wasn’t me

Thomas: Bloody hell, of course not

Alan: wtf no, what r u goin on about

Soon, all his friends have texted, none admitting to doing the deed. Philip scowls and starts typing out a furious response when his phone chimes again. He checks the group chat, but nobody has sent a text. He tabs out and checks his messages.

1 new message from: Theo

Philip opens it.

Theo: I did it

Philip: why?????

Theo: I was 20, I was dumb, he was cute.  
Theo: He saw my bi pin on my backpack  
Theo: He asked, and I said yes.  
Theo: I’m sorry  
Theo: ur not gonna execute me, r u?

Philip takes a deep, shaky breath.

Philip: No, I’m not going to execute you.  
Philip: Bi, huh. What does that mean?

Theo: means I like both guys and girls

Theo answers a few more questions for Philip before he directs him to google. 

Philp goes down a rabbit hole, googling everything he can. He climbs into bed late that night, mind racing.

~~~

The next morning, he finishes the emails and drives to Buckingham.

While walking through the palace, the queen makes a comment about Henry. It’s the sort of thing he would’ve ignored before last night.

“Don’t say things like that,” he says sharply.

They both freeze in the hall. She looks just as shocked as Philip feels.

“I won't let you slander him like that. Or people like him,” Philip continues, confidence growing. “Grow up, Gran, the world has changed. I won’t let you manipulate me any more. I won't let you turn me against my brother any longer.”

“ _Philip_ ," she hisses. “You cannot talk to your queen like that!”

“I’m not talking to my queen. I’m talking to my grandmother who had better think hard about what she does from now on if she doesn’t want to lose the last of her family to her vitriol. Now, if you don't mind, I have somewhere I need to be.”

“PHILIP!” She calls, and for once in his life, Philip doesn’t answer.

**Author's Note:**

> I have ideas for a sequel, beginning with Philip's apology to Henry and Bea.
> 
> No promises on when that will happen.
> 
> Leave a kudos and a comment, I'd love to know what you think
> 
> Follow me on tumblr @the-emerald7!


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